Religious syncretism as a sociocultural factor of social security in cross-border regions

This research rationalises the need to consider religious syncretism a crucial factor of social security in cross-border regions. Special attention is paid to determining and studying the specificity of religious syncretism in the conditions of cross-border regions and analysing the role of religious syncretism in the social security of such regions. We used the combination of the different methodological approaches, it is possible to determine the role of religious syncretism as a sociocultural factor of social security in cross-border regions. Religious syncretism creates firm intercultural and interreligious bonds between the ethnic groups that populate cross-border regions; such bonds are notable for a certain historically established system of ordered and stable interactions, which virtually rules out the emergence of conflicts and helps to preserve the functional integrity of state borders.     

Seeing the “forest” or the “trees” of organizational justice: Effects of temporal perspective on employee concerns about unfair treatment at work

What events do employees recall or anticipate when they think of past or future unfair treatment at work? We propose that an employee’s temporal perspective can change the salience of different types of injustice through its effect on cognitions about employment. Study 1 used a survey in which employee temporal focus was measured as an individual difference. Whereas greater levels of future focus related positively to concerns about distributive injustice, greater levels of present focus related positively to concerns about interactional injustice. In Study 2, an experimental design focused employee attention on timeframes that differed in temporal orientation and temporal distance. Whereas distributive injustice was more salient when future (versus past) orientation was induced, interactional injustice was more salient when past orientation was induced and at less temporal distance. Study 3 showed that the mechanism underlying the effect of employee temporal perspective is abstract versus concrete cognitions about employment.     

Why do Mathematicians Need Different Ways of Presenting Mathematical Objects? The Case of Cayley Graphs

This paper investigates the role of pictures in mathematics in the particular case of Cayley graphs—the graphic representations of groups. I shall argue that their principal function in that theory—to provide insight into the abstract structure of groups—is performed employing their visual aspect. I suggest that the application of a visual graph theory in the purely non-visual theory of groups resulted in a new effective approach in which pictures have an essential role. Cayley graphs were initially developed as exact mathematical constructions. Therefore, they are legitimate components of the theory (combinatorial and geometric group theory) and the pictures of Cayley graphs are a part of practical mathematical procedures.     

On the Performativity of Gender: Gender Studies in Post-Soviet Higher Education

In this article I attempt to conceptualize myexistential and institutional experience as thedirector of the Kharkov Center for GenderStudies acquired in the course of introducinggender studies into the system of post-Soviethigher education. The main subject of thearticle concerns the logical ground of genderdiscourse and the complicated relations betweenthe notions of `gender studies', `women'sstudies', and, within the latter, `feminism' inthe former USSR, all in the framework ofconcepts from Western feminists theory.     

Values Following a Major Terrorist Incident: Finnish Adolescent and Student Values Before and After September 11, 2001

The horrific terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, left an indelible mark on perceptions of security and threat across the world. This paper uses Schwartz's (1992) value circumplex model to examine value change across matched high school and university student samples in Finland, questioned before and after the World Trade Center (WTC) and associated attacks. In Study 1 ( N =419), security values of adolescents were higher the day following the WTC attacks than before, but fell back toward pre-attack levels in the subsequent two samples. In contrast, levels of stimulation were lower following the terrorist incidents. In Study 2 ( N =222), security levels of students were also higher following the WTC attacks, but again were closer to pre-attack levels in a subsequent cohort.     

Different working memory capacity in normal young adults for visual and tactile letter recognition task

Thirty-nine young adult participants performing the visual and tactile n-back working memory task were compared. In the visual task, letters were presented on a computer screen and in the tactile task, plastic letters embedded on a board were explored tactually. The amount of incorrect responses increased with increasing memory load in both tasks, but was significantly lower in the visual task. Subgrouping the participants with extreme performances into "skilled" and "poor" performers showed that the best performance was found among "skilled" visual performers, and the worst one among "poor" tactile performers. There was more interindividual variation among tactile than visual performance. We conclude that tactile working memory capacity, measured here by letter recognition and letter memory, is generally more limited and shows more variability than visual memory in normal sighted participants.     

Valence of self-cognitions: the positivity of individual self-statements

Based on D. Trafimow, H. C. Triandis, and S. Goto's (1991) research on the distinction between the private, collective, and relational selves, the present authors explored the valence of each self. The authors administered to participants either a private self-prime, a collective self-prime, or a relational self-prime and then asked them to write 20 self-statements. The authors coded the statements for valence (positive, neutral, or negative) and self-statement type (individual, collective, or relational). The results indicated that the valence of individual self-statements were most positive when the collective self or the relational self was primed, indicating the possibility that positive illusions were exaggerated most in the context of other people.     

On the fate of distractor stimuli in rapid serial visual presentation

Observers demonstrate an impaired ability to report the second of two targets in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream if it appears within 500 ms of the first target--a phenomenon known as the attentional blink. This study investigated the fate of stimuli in dual-target RSVP streams that do not require report--the distractors. In five experiments, observers viewed dual-target RSVP streams where the items flanking Target 1 either had the same identity (repeats) or a different identity (non-repeats). Repeated distractors reduced the attentional blink, but only if two conditions were met (1) the items flanking Target 1 were featurally identical and (2) the distractors were drawn from a different alphanumeric category to the targets (e.g. digits vs. letters). We interpret this reduced blink magnitude in the repeat trials as evidence that in RSVP streams distractor items that appear in close temporal proximity to Target 1 are inhibited and we propose that this inhibition occurs both at the level of alphanumeric features and abstract identities.     

An index of specific behaviors in the moral domain

Studies on attribution in the moral domain often involve the use of specific behavior examples. To make valid comparisons across trait dimensions (such as honesty and friendliness), it is important to equate the intensities of the specific behaviors used. Pretesting specific behaviors can be a costly effort, but it is often necessary for research in social psychology. Our study provides a rich source of such pretested behaviors. Positive and negative examples of behaviors in the categories of honesty, loyalty, friendliness, charitableness, and cooperativeness were solicited from participants and then rated on the relevant trait dimension by an independent group. The result is data representing rankings, raw scores, andz-scores in an index of 500 behaviors across 10 trait categories that can be used by researchers to study moral and immoral behaviors. The full index of behaviors is available at www .psychonomic.org/archive/.     

From Gaming to Hating: Extreme-Right Ideological Indoctrination and Mobilization for Violence of Children on Online Gaming Platforms

As a consequence of numerous extreme-right terror attacks in which the perpetrators posted their manifestos and attack life streams on online platforms adjacent to the video gaming community, as well as radicalized within that environment to a significant degree (e.g., Christchurch, New Zealand; Halle, Germany), increasing scholarly and policymaker interest is focusing on far-right radicalization and recruitment within online video game environments. Yet little empirical insights exist about the specific engagement between right-wing extremists and their potential recruits on these platforms. This study presents findings from a qualitative exploration of German police-investigation files for two children who radicalized on gaming platforms to become involved in extreme-right criminal behavior, including the plotting of a terrorist attack. The study demonstrates the importance of online and offline factor interaction, especially regarding the role of familiar criminogenic factors, as well as the social–emotional bonding between potential recruits and extremist gamers created through shared gaming experiences that lead to high-intensity extremist radicalization aimed at offline behavioral changes. The study did not find evidence for strategic organizational far-right recruitment campaigns, but rather multidirectional social-networking processes which were also initiated by the potential recruits.